Posts Tagged ‘soviet’

[Editor’s note: This map from a fan-boy website promoting the upcoming Tin Tin film, “The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn” (directed by Steven Spielberg and due in theatres October 2011), is a whirlwind tour around the globe. Created by Herge, pen name for Georges Remi, the series of graphic novels has delighted readers in many languages for more than 80 years. Thanks Laris!]

It seemed like such a simple idea, creating a map of Tintin’s journeys around the world. An idea so simple that I could do it over the holidays between Christmas and New Year. Five months later and I’m finally nearing completion.

The Devil is in the Detail

Herge is renown for the accuracy and detail he put into his work. The carefully referenced images of foreign countries, the painstakingly researched planes or the spacecraft he designed are as much part of the adventures of Tintin as the Tintin himself. Yet when I came to look at the geography behind Tintin’s stories, it became apparent that Herge had a very relaxed view of where things were in the world.

Take, for example, the question of where Tintin lives. In Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, it is clear that Tintin lives in Brussels. However in the Crab with the Golden Claw, The Shooting Star and The Secret of the Unicorn our hero regularly pops out to visit the docks. A neat feat because Brussels is 30 miles from the coast. [ @hairydalek has pointed out that Brussels has canals and the Bassin Vergote ]. Many similar problems exist. In the Cigars of the Pharaoh, how did Tintin fly from Khemed to Gaipajama, a distance of not less than 1000 miles, in a 1930’s airplane without refueling?

Flight 714 to Syndey

Yet at other times Herge is incredibly precise about where Tintin is. The Shooting Star and Red Rackham’s Treasure both contain specific map references. In Flight 714 to Sydney the pilot Piotr Skut navigates via two minor radio beacons in Indonesian, both of which are on the logical route to Sydney. Herge must of carefully researched this route. Even right back in the beginning, in Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, the train journey back to Brussels is full of accurate observations about towns he passes through.

[Editor's note: This full page graphic by Gene Thorp delves into the mire that Afghanistan may become for President Obama. Great mapping and visual story telling with photo and charting elements.]

Republished from The Washington Post.
Originally published Sunday 15 February 2009 in the Outlook section.Graphic by Gene Thorp and Patterson Clark.

Iraq was George W. Bush’s war, but the conflict that now embroils both Afghanistan and Pakistan is likely to become Barack Obama’s — a war to which he may commit 30,000 more U.S. troops. Will the incoming soldiers be sucked into the “graveyard of empires,” as the British and Soviets were before them? Or could Obama’s war eventually bring peace and stability to the region? Here are some of the most important trends that will help determine the answer.

Graphic content by Peter Bergen, author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know” and senior fellow at the New America Foundation, and Katherine Tiedemann, New America Foundation program associate

On the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, lies the Kabre Ghora graveyard. It is believed to contain the graves of 158 British soldiers, diplomats and their families who died in the city during the Anglo-Afghan wars of 1839-1842 and 1879-1880. The name comes from the term Afghans use to describe British soldiers: “Ghora.”

The original British gravestones have disappeared except for the remnants of 10, which have been preserved and relocated to a spot against the cemetery’s southern wall. I have been to Kabre Ghora several times, but on my most recent visit, I noticed something new — a memorial honoring soldiers from the United States, Canada and Europe who have died in Afghanistan since 2001.

Afghanistan has a reputation as a graveyard of empires, based as much on lore as on reality. This reputation has contributed to a growing pessimism that U.S. and NATO forces will fare no better there than did the Soviet and British armies, or even their predecessors reaching back to Alexander the Great. The gloom was only stoked by last week’s brazen suicide attacks in Kabul on the eve of a visit by Richard Holbrooke, President Obama’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But it would be irresponsible to concede defeat. Yes, the situation is serious, but it’s far from doomed. We can still turn things around if we strive for a better understanding of the Afghan insurgency and work to exploit its many weaknesses.